Posts for News

Fenix has announced that it has entered into an agreement to be acquired by energy giant ENGIE. The transaction marks the combination of a dynamic and innovative business with the heft and financial strength of a large multinational corporation. Fenix will be the first PayGo Solar Home System company to join a worldwide energy leader, allowing it to achieve its vision much more quickly than would be possible as a stand alone business. In addition to capital, ENGIE will bring over 50 years of global energy experience, supply chain power to bring down costs, government relationships, R&D resources, and access to talent that will help Fenix scale into new markets much faster.

The intention of the partnership is that Fenix will remain a distinct company and will form the consumer leg of ENGIE’s ambitious plans for developing an off-grid energy business across Africa. ENGIE is firmly committed to a decentralised, decarbonised and digital energy future. The transaction is a sign that this new business model has reached a stage of maturity that will see it attracting more capital and serving more of the 600 million people in Africa who do not have access to the grid. The transaction is subject to certain conditions, including regulatory approvals, and is expected to close in early 2018. Fenix was advised by Enclude on this transaction. See the full press release here.

In partnership with the Gates Foundation and the Central Bank of Jordan, Enclude is working to promote the resilience of refugees and host communities. Digital payments play an important role not only in supporting humanitarian relief efforts, but also in advancing financial inclusion and economic empowerment of these vulnerable groups. Read the article.

After 16 months of intensive and innovative work, Sociedad de Ahorro y Credito INTEGRAL of El Salvador and Enclude BV concluded their joint energy efficiency project with a closing ceremony on July 4th. Mrs. Carmiña Moreno of the IADB presided over the event, along with Mr. Luis Castillo, President of Integral; Mr. Juan Pablo Meza, General Manager of Integral; and Messrs. Stefan Platteau, and Juan Vega representing Enclude.

At the closing event, speakers presented the achievements of the project and emphasized that the work under EcoMicro has transformed Integral’s ecological consciousness and nurtured the belief that green business is lucrative for the institution as well as for its clients. With this project, Integral has taken decisive steps towards becoming a green financial institution and has further proven its adherence to the sustainability vision of the Global Alliance for Banking on Values (GABV www.gabv.org), of which it is a proud member.

Throughout the project, a team of national and international experts from Enclude worked alongside Integral’s management and field offices to achieve all goals, including the design and piloting of a green finance product, the introduction of a country wide climate risk analysis tool and the reduction of Integral’s carbon footprint. The project was made possible through the EcoMicro Program (www.ecomicro.org), a Program of the Multilateral Investment Fund (MIF) of the InterAmerican Development Bank (IADB).

Topic: Investing for Good: A Look at how INGOs are Leveraging Their Funds

Laurie Spengler, Enclude’s President & CEO, will moderate a panel at the InterAction Forum 2017. The diverse panel will showcase different approaches to ‘investing for good’ and will discuss when and where investment is appropriate given an NGO’s appetite for risk, and how to assess the chances of success.

WomenX is a program launched in 2014 by the World Bank Group to support women entrepreneurs with high-growth potential. The program is being implemented in Karachi, Lahore, and Peshawar by Enclude and, to date, has supported almost 300 Pakistani women entrepreneurs with business training, mentorship, and networking opportunities. A key component of the program is a four-month business training designed and delivered by Enclude’s business education partner IBA AMAN-CED.

IBA Aman-CED’s business education course won the Excellence in Entrepreneurship Education Award in the category of Outstanding Specialty Program. The award was given to IBA Aman-CED at the annual conference of the United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship (USASBE) held in Philadelphia from January 19 to 22, 2017.

We are very pleased to share the news that Enclude is one of 5 winners of a grant from ANDE’s 2016 Catalyst Fund. The goal of the fund is to increase the productivity and effectiveness of ANDE members, while creating tools and insights that can help the SGB sector as a whole. ANDE is the Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs, a global membership network of organizations that propel entrepreneurship in emerging markets.

This year’s competition focused on ways to increase women’s access to finance using data and technology, and to support invention-based entrepreneurship initiatives. Five grants totaling $244,000 will be disbursed with support from S&P Global and The Lemelson Foundation. Winners were selected based on their alignment with the goals of the fund, as well as clarity of the proposal, feasibility, capacity, and potential for broad and deep impact. To read more about the winners and their innovative solutions, see the announcement from ANDE. For more detail on the Gender Benchmarking Tool which Enclude will pilot with this funding, see Enclude’s blog.

The Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth, our partner in a global initiative to connect 1 million microentrepreneurs to the formal economy, invites representatives of stakeholder organizations to participate in this event focusing on how to support growth of the middle class in India.

The Global Alliance for Banking on Values is an independent network of banks and banking cooperatives with a shared mission to use finance to deliver sustainable economic, social and environmental development. The GABV has recently released a series of interviews with CEOs of member banks about how their institutions and the GABV contribute to more sustainable financial systems and local economies. Among those interviewed was Enclude CEO Laurie Spengler, who talked about Sustainability | Finance | Real Economies (SFRE, pronounced “Sapphire”), the first-ever global, open-ended fund investing in financial institutions committed to a set of sustainability principles.

Enclude’s Outcome Management and Strategy Lead, Geert Jan Schuite, will speak at the Annual Meeting and Conference of the Microfinance Council of the Philippines (MCPI) which will be held in Manila on July 28-29, 2016. The theme of this year’s conference is Realizing the Sustainable Development Goals through Microfinance. Mr. Schuite will discuss the “Green Inclusive Finance” approach and how it can be implemented by MFIs to support their clients in adapting to the effects of climate change in a session with 2 other speakers.

Enclude is currently doing some research for Infodev on the effectiveness of small business acceleration programmes, together with ANDE and Emory University. We have proposed a panel session for the SOCAP16, a very prominent annual conference for social entrepreneurs, impact investors, foundations, corporations, global nonprofits and as they say “other valuable strangers.” Sonke Buschmann, Enclude’s Director, Sustainable Business Practices, will participate as a panelist, along with colleagues from ANDE, USAID, and Emory University.

The SOCAP agenda is decided in part by votes from this community. Please take a minute now to vote for the panel which will highlight Enclude’s work, among others.

Let’s make sure that the decision makers know how important this research is! Vote for this session using the link below.